"If **your** not an engineer (or don't have an engineer's brain (or a ..." Ouch! My eyes, my eyes! Who committed that grammatical atrocity!? Ack! (RM, did you do that?) Ack! Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell McMahon" To: Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 4:12 AM Subject: Re [OT]: grue meets PIC (revenge!) > > That was very, very (very) funny. You are a true wit Russell, > > Thanks - flattery will get you somewhere :-) > > > which, by the way, is a servicable replacement for the ability to > > quote. > > Ah, you mean > > "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit." -- Maugham > > (no prize, I found it in your quotes list) > I have been known to quote on occasion but people tend to throw things at me > when I do. (They do that anyway but they do it more when I quote). > > I'm trying to work out how to fit this into a memorable quote. > The essence is here but all I need now is something pithy to hand on the > front. > Space Sjhuttles are, alas, not good taste here. > GMO is probably a salutary target > > 98.9999% reliable > > (or risk free, or safe, or ....) > If your not an engineer (or don't have an engineer's brain (or a > scientists's) you may miss the point. > > > > http://www.piclist.com/quote > > Highly recommended reading. > > I like Asimov's version of Clark's dictum. > > "Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic" > > Clark. > > Any sufficiently advanced techmology is indistinguishable from a rigged > demo" > > Asimov > > > I sometimes point this ouit to customers AFTER I have shown them something > working. I then explain how I coul;d have ruigged what they saw so they > thought it was working as they thought they saw. > > Stumbled on this when checking the Asimov version. haven't seen what they > make yet but looks like some practical engineering experience is being > discussed. 8 "cockpits" ? > > http://www.devnet.scea.com/research/gdc2001/multiplayer/p5_lastwords/sld002. > htm > > > Have you, in fact, completed the transition to the dark side and > > honed your skills as an SX master? > > No. Nor do I want to. > I'm happy to remain an acolyte of the more arcane arts. > (At present I'm attempting to master life forces 101 (DNA style)) > I have one SX project to date and it will need some more code added shortly. > (Interface between an M86/V30/Other box and GPS, Printer, Card Reader, > other). > My mind was mother-ducked by the Motorola 6800 long ago and I have ever > since preferred "real" processors that have real instructions, user stacks, > accessible stacks, real instructions and don't play games with my own > interior memory model :-). I use PIC as required but PIC is arcane, although > most True Believer (tm) PICsters don't see this. SX is of course better but > the words 'page' and 'bank' still tend to feature in its vocab for the > smallest of tasks and the substract instruction still works backwards. At > least you don't have to barrel roll to get in and out of interupts. > > Actually, I encountered two cpus BEFORE the 6800 which, fortunately, did not > imprint my brain. One was the NatSemi SC/MP (wierd man) and the other the > truly frabjous Fairchild F8. Now THAT was a processor. For a REAL RISC > processor try the ST6 (who needs AND and OR instuctions when you have > DeMorgan's theorum.). The ultimate RISC of course was the PDP8 with 8 > instructions and no explicit stack (even for subroutines) but I've never > coded for one of those (only walked inside one :-) ). > > > > Have you seen the new IDE from Parallax? And the fixes to SASM? > > And did you know I'm porting my macros for memory management, IF > > ELSEIF ELSE, SELECT CASE, REPEAT LOOP WHILE UNTIL, delays, port > > setup and so on from the SXKey assembler to SASM for the new IDE? > > No, no, no respectively (or irrespectively as they are all the same answer) > but I'll have a look when the SX again appears on my horizon. At present I'm > AVRing and Z8 will beckon again shortly. > > > Russell > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.